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Deuteronomy 7:1-11:32

Not by Your Own Strength (Official)

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Not by Your Own Strength (Official)

Deuteronomy 7:1-11:32

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Not by Your Own Strength (Official)

Deuteronomy 7:1-11:32

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About this song

This song belongs to the Deuteronomy collection. One recording is available to play here, with the complete lyrics below.

Bible book
Deuteronomy
Collection
Deuteronomy
Musical styles
Acoustic
[Intro] Look at your feet. Look at your coat. Forty years, and look. [Verse 1] You were the fewest of the peoples, a handful on the sand. He didn't set His love on you for the number of your band. He loved you, and He kept the oath He swore your fathers long ago, and pulled you from the brick kilns and laid the Pharaoh low. [Verse 2] He let you go hungry in the desert, then laid manna on the ground, a bread your fathers never saw, like frost for miles around, so you would know you lived on Him, on every word He spoke, and not on what you gathered up at dawn when you awoke. [Pre-Chorus] There's wheat and barley over Jordan, the vine, the fig, the oil, there's iron lying in the rocks and copper in the soil. And when you're full and your herds have grown, you'll hear yourself say, my own two hands have made me rich. Don't say it. Not that day. [Chorus] Not by your own strength, not by the sword you swing, not for your goodness, not your size, not any other thing. Say it when the barns are full. He gave you everything. [Verse 3] I was forty days on Horeb, and I came down with the stone and found a calf of gold you'd made the minute I was gone. I broke the tablets where you stood. I ground the calf to dust. I lay another forty days face down, and begged for us. [Chorus] Not by your own strength, not by the sword you swing, not for your goodness, not your size, not any other thing. Say it when the barns are full. He gave you everything. [Bridge] Then He said, cut two stones like the first and bring them up the hill. He wrote the same words on them again. They're in the ark here still. You're a stubborn people. You were from the day I knew you. And still He wrote it all again and gave it back to you. [Final Chorus] Not by your own strength, not by the sword you swing, not for your goodness, not your size, not any other thing. Say it when the barns are full. He gave you everything. [Outro] Look at your feet. Look at your coat. Forty years, and look.

Named in this songMannaJordanHoreb

About the passage

Deuteronomy 7: Chosen by love, forbidden to absorb the land's worship

Moses ties the coming conquest directly to the problem of worship. Israel is not to preserve the defeated nations' altars, gods, or religious alliances, and the severe commands against the named peoples are explained in part by the danger of being turned toward other gods. Yet election is stripped of numerical pride: Israel was not chosen for being impressive, but because the LORD loved the people and kept the oath to the fathers. Blessing is described in crops, children, flocks, and health, while fear of stronger nations is answered by remembering Egypt rather than pretending the enemies are weak. Even the pace of conquest is practical, occurring "little by little." The chapter ends at household scale, where silver or gold attached to an idol cannot be privately salvaged without importing the condemned object into Israel's life.

Study Deuteronomy 7 in depth

Deuteronomy 8: The danger of forgetting after the meal

Chapter 8 sets two landscapes beside each other: a wilderness where dependence was impossible to hide and a fertile land where dependence may be easier to forget. Hunger, manna, preserved clothing, and water from rock become part of Israel's schooling. The good land is then described in detail, with springs, grain, fruit, oil, minerals, and bread without scarcity. Moses does not distrust fullness, but he does distrust the explanation fullness may generate. Houses, herds, silver, and gold can lift the heart until Israel says its own power produced its wealth. The correction is not that human ability is imaginary. It is that the ability itself is given within a covenant God swore to the fathers. Forgetting finally takes religious form when Israel follows other gods, and election offers no exemption from the consequence.

Study Deuteronomy 8 in depth

Deuteronomy 9: Moses removes the grounds for boasting

Moses attacks the idea that possession of the land will certify Israel's virtue. The nations are stronger, the cities formidable, and their wickedness is named, but Israel's righteousness is repeatedly denied as the reason for victory. The golden calf supplies the clearest evidence. While Moses receives the covenant tablets, the people make an image below, and the tablets are broken before their eyes. Taberah, Massah, Kibroth-hattaavah, and Kadesh show that Horeb was not an isolated failure. Israel survives because Moses intercedes, appealing not to the people's innocence but to God's redemption, the fathers, and the reputation of the LORD among the Egyptians. The chapter leaves no room for boasting. The inheritance rests on judgment of the nations and faithfulness to a promise, not a clean record Israel does not possess.

Study Deuteronomy 9 in depth